The Golem and the Djinni. Helene Wecker

from Beirut. Now as then, he sensed the threads of his life scattering and rearranging before this new and overwhelming thing that had landed among them.

      “What is that you’re doing?”

      Arbeely jumped. The Djinni hadn’t moved, but his eyes were open; Arbeely wondered how long he’d been watching. “I’m patching a teakettle,” he said. “Its owner left it on the stove too long.”

      The Djinni inclined his head toward the kettle. “And what metal is that?”

      “It’s two metals,” said Arbeely. “Steel, dipped in tin.” He found a scrap on the table and held it out to the Djinni, pointing out the layers with his fingernail. “Tin, steel, tin. You see? The tin is too soft to use on its own, and with steel there’s the problem of rust. But together like this, they’re very strong, and versatile.”

      “I see. Ingenious.” He sat up straighter, and held out his hand to the teakettle. “May I?” Arbeely handed him the kettle, and the Djinni peered at it, turning it over in his now-steady hands. “I assume the difficulty lies in thinning the edges of the patch without exposing the steel.”

      “That’s it exactly,” said Arbeely, surprised.

      The Djinni laid his hand over the patch. After a few moments, he began to carefully rub the patch around its edges. Arbeely watched, dumbfounded, as the outline of the patch disappeared.

      The Djinni handed the teakettle back to Arbeely. It was as though the hole had never been.

      “I have a proposition for you,” said the Djinni.

      Spring rains can come on suddenly in the desert. On the morning after the Djinni returned from following the caravan to the Ghouta, the skies clouded over, releasing first a thin patter of raindrops, and then a respectable downpour. The dry riverbeds and gullies began to run with water. The Djinni watched the rain sluice down the walls and crenellations of his palace, irritated at the inconvenience. He had planned to depart for the djinn habitations at first light, but now he would have to wait.

      And so he roamed his glass halls, examining the metalwork and making idle changes here and there to pass the time. His thoughts returned to the men of the caravan, their conversations and jests. He remembered the old man’s songs about the Bedouin, and wondered if the men in them had truly been so brave, the women so beautiful. Or were they only invented legends, the details altered and exaggerated over time?

      For three days the rains came and went, three days of infuriating confinement. If the Djinni had been able to go outside, and chase himself to the ends of the earth, then his growing obsession with the world of men might have dissipated, and he might have gone to visit the djinn habitations of his youth, as planned. But when the clouds exhausted themselves and the Djinni at last emerged to a newly washed landscape, he found that all thoughts of returning to his own people had vanished with the rains.

       3.

      The Golem was not even a few hours in New York before she began to long for the relative calm of the ship. The din of the streets was incredible; the noise in her head was worse. At first it nearly paralyzed her, and she hid under an awning as the desperate thoughts of the pushcart vendors and paperboys rode ahead of their shouting voices: the rent is due, my father will beat me, please somebody buy the cabbages before they spoil. It made her want to slap her hands over her ears. If she’d had any money, she would’ve given it all away, just to quiet the noise.

      Passersby glanced her up and down, taking in her staring eyes, the dirty and disheveled dress, the ludicrous men’s coat. The women frowned; some of the men smirked. One man, weaving drunk, grinned at her and approached, his thoughts bleary with lust. To her surprise she realized this was one desire she had no wish to fulfill. Repulsed, she dashed to the other side of the street. A streetcar came rattling around the corner and missed her by a hair. The conductor’s curses trailed her as she hurried away.

      She wandered for hours, through streets and alleys, turning corners at random. It was a humid July day, and the city began to stink, a pungent mix of rotting garbage and manure. Her dress had dried, though the river silt still clung to it in flaking sheets. The woolen coat made her even more conspicuous as the rest of the city sweltered. She too was hot, but not uncomfortable—rather, it made her feel loose-limbed and slow, as though she were wading through the river again.

      Everything she saw was new and unknown, and there seemed to be no end to it. She was frightened and overwhelmed, but an intense curiosity lay beneath the fear, leading her on. She peered inside a butcher’s shop, trying to make sense of the plucked birds and strings of sausages, the red oblong carcasses that hung from hooks. The butcher saw her and started to come around the counter; she gave him a quick, placating smile, and walked on. The thoughts of passersby flew through her mind, but they led to no answers, only more questions. For one thing, why did everyone need money? And what exactly was money? She’d thought it merely the coins she saw exchanging hands; but it was so ubiquitous in both fear and desire that she decided there was a larger mystery to it, one she had yet to decipher.

      She skirted the edge of a fashionable district, and the shop windows began to fill with dresses and shoes, hats and jewelry. In front of a milliner’s she stopped to gaze at an enormous, fantastical hat on a pedestal, its wide band bedecked with netting and fabric rosettes and a gigantic, sweeping ostrich plume. Fascinated, the Golem leaned forward and put one hand on the glass—and the thin pane shattered beneath her touch.

      She jumped back as a rain of shards tumbled from the window and scattered onto the sidewalk. In the shop, two well-dressed women stared out at her, hands over their mouths.

      “I’m sorry,” the Golem whispered, and ran away.

      Afraid now, she hurried through alleys and across busy thoroughfares, trying not to blunder into pedestrians. The neighborhoods shifted around her, changing block to block. Grubby-looking men and indignant shopkeepers shouted at one another, airing grievances in a dozen languages. Children dashed home from shoeshine stands and games of stickball, thinking eagerly of supper.

      A sort of mental exhaustion began to set in, dulling her thoughts. She headed eastward, following the tips of the shadows, and found herself in a neighborhood that bustled with less chaos and more purpose. Shopkeepers were rolling up their awnings and locking their doors. Bearded men walked slowly next to each other, talking with intensity. Women stood chatting on corners, string-tied packages in their arms, children pulling at their skirts. The language they spoke was the same one she’d used with Rotfeld, the language she’d known upon waking. After the day’s riot of words, hearing it again was a small, familiar comfort.

      She slowed now, and looked around. Next to her a tenement stoop beckoned; she’d seen men and women, young and old, sitting on such stoops all day. She tucked her skirts beneath herself and sat down. The stone was warm through her dress. She watched people’s faces as they came and went. Most were tired and distracted, occupied with their own thoughts. Men began to arrive home from their shifts, exhaustion on their faces and hunger in their bellies. She saw in their minds the meals they were about to tuck into, the thick dark bread spread with schmaltz, the herring and pickles, the mugs of thin beer. She saw their hopes for a cooling breeze, a good night’s sleep.

      A loneliness like fatigue pulled at her. She couldn’t sit on the stoop forever, she must move on; but for the moment, it felt easier to stay where she was. She rested her head against the brick of the balustrade. A pair of small brown birds was pecking in the dust at the bottom of the stoop, unconcerned by the tramping feet of passersby. One of the birds fluttered up the steps and landed next to the Golem. It prodded at the stone with its sharp beak, then turned sideways and hopped onto the Golem’s thigh.

      She was surprised but managed to hold perfectly still as the bird perched in her lap, bobbing and pecking at the remains of the riverbed silt that still dusted her skirt. Thin, hard feet scratched at her through the fabric. Slowly, very slowly, she extended a hand. The